theoretical question - can root's username be changed?

[akonstam at trinity.edu]

> 
> One of the things I have learnt over the last two decades 
> administrating Unix and Linux systems, is that sometimes 
> there can be such a thing as too much security. I have 
> had intel based pc systems that were hardened so much that 
> even with physical access to the system it took a drill 
> to remove the case locking mechanism in order to access 
> the motherboard to erase the bios password before being able 
> to boot with a recovery disk. Once the recovery disk was 
> loaded I was able to change the "admin" users password to 
> gain access to the system, after the customer "lost" the 
> password, when an employee left. On that system I had 
> disabled root from being able to be logged in from all tty's 
> and the console, only the "admin" user was able to log in 
> from the console. That customer opted for less security on 
> the next system.
> 
> If you want that kind of security, get a good steel case 
> and check out the Bastille Linux project.
t reminds me of a day that will live in infamy when not realizing that
they were using shadow passwds I erased the x in the passwd field of the
root account. That cause the company I was consulting for $1,500. I know
it was a zenith of my stupidity that day and it was on an At&T Unix box
that had no way to boot to run level 1. I did a similar thing recently on
an OS X box where booting to run level 1 is possible. That will teach
people to allow me to administer an OS X box with mysterious commands
that are not reversible.

I am really not that incompetent but never try to administer a machine
you do not understand.
-- 

-------------------------------------------
Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
telephone: (210)-999-7484